House plants and flowers are commonly grown in soil held in tapered pots made of plastic or terracotta. Watering is done by hand pouring or rain if left outdoors. Excessive water retention can have deleterious effects. Prior to the conception and development of the present invention, pots for growing flowers and other plants have comprehended the advantage of allowing excess water to seep out. Typically the pots will have at least one vertically disposed hole in the bottom surface, and the pot sits in a saucer or shallow tray to prevent liquid from running onto the surrounding supporting surface. However, retention of soil in the pot and prevention of pluggage of drain holes have been problems to overcome. Persons planting the flowers or plants often employ time and expense consuming measures such as first placing a layer or layers of rocks or pebbles in the pot before adding the soil.
An extensive amount of prior art has been disclosed for addressing the aforementioned issues. A series of U.S. Design Patents to Carlson, such as D 288,793, D 300,732, and D 352,479 have provided many configurations for planter inserts fabricated from synthetic material. These generally cover most of the bottom of the pot and have a multitude of holes and slots to enable water to get out even when most of the open are is plugged with dirt. U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,854 discloses a plant container drain insert that engages with the drain hole.
U.S. Pat. No. 515,032 discloses a three-legged false bottom for covering a central drain hole in the bottom of a flower pot. This false bottom is meant to cover nearly the entire cross sectional area near the bottom of the pot, and hence must have a size matching each pot diameter. Also, the legs are very narrow and occupy very little of the volume beneath the false bottom. Thus, the legs offer almost no resistance to migration of soil to the drain hole.